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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




Hollinger 

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SOUTHERN WAR CLAIMS 



SPEECH 



OF 



HON. EDWARD S. BRAGG, 



OP 



WISCONSIN 



IN THE 



HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 



MAY 1, 1878 




WASHINGTON 

1878. 



tD- infM 



SPEECH 

OF 

HON. EDWAED S. BRAGG. 



The House having met for debate, Mr Covert in the Chair as Speaker pro tem- 
pore — 

Mr. BRAGG said : 

Mr. Speaker : This House has before it a bill entitled "A bill to 
reimburse the College of William and Mary, in Virginia, for property 
destroyed during the war." 

There underlies this proposed measure, sir, a question of more than 
ordinary import. The discussion of it commenced with a glowing 
tribute paid the College of William and Mary and her renowned 
alumni by the gentleman from Virginia, [Mr. Goode.] 

The gentleman from Massachusetts, [Mr. Eoring,] a classic son of 
Harvard, responded in an effort so replete with elegant diction and 
scholarly attainment and rich in historic reminiscence that the senses, 
for the time dazzled and bewildered by its learning and beauty, were 
captivated ; judgment forgot its office and sentiment took its place. 

I confess it an ungrateful task for a plain, blunt-spoken man, devoid 
of magnetism or oratorical art, but possessed only of an earnest con- 
viction of the truth of his sentiments, to obtrude himself upon the 
scene to jar and disrupt with his discordant voice the delicious reve- 
ries produced by the sentimental elixir, so subtly administered. But, 
sir, a sense of duty to my countrymen, South as well as North, will 
not permit me to sit quietly by and see the great evil attending the 
passage of this bill fastened upon us by specious sophistry. 

Words, with me, sir, serve their true purpose when used to express, 
not conceal, ideas. It matters not if I am called a bigot or fanatic, I 
maintain that this bill is a crafty device to foist upon us southern 
war claims as skillfully planned and as certain in results as the 
wooden horse that carried woe and ruin within the walls of far-famed 
Troy. 

The amount proposed to be given is not large, but the shadow it 
casts before it is large enough to darken the land. 

The reasons given are plausible ; the disciple of ^Esculapius gilds 
with a rich sugar-coating a noxious drug that the stomach of his 
patient revolts at, but when it is once swallowed the purpose is as 
surely accomplished as though no device had been used to make the 
vile dose palatable. So the learned doctor from Harvard has heaped 
the stores of his learning, thickly interspersed with sentiment, over 
and around this measure to hide* its real meaning and significance, 
but the patient, beguiled by the garnishment into the adoption of the 
prescription, cannot escape its fatal consequences. 

Before entering upon the consideration of these consequences, let 
us briefly review the alleged facts out of which this claim arises. 
They are recited by the learned advocates of the measures as follows : 

During the first year of the war, until May, 1862, the college was held first as> 



barracks and then as hospital for confederate forces. From that time until the 
close of the war, except for a few hours on the 9th day of September, 1862, it was 
occupied by Union troops, and was used by them for the storing of military sup- 
plies and other purposes of convenience to our armies. In a skirmish on the 9th 
day of September, 1862, the main building was burned by the Federal forces, who 
occupied them, and at a later period of the war, during which the same forces held 
possession of them, all the remaining houses upon the college premises were, with 
the inclosures, burned wholly or in part pulled to pieces. 

From this statement of facts, independent of positive evidence, 
which I believe exists, proving the same thing, I maintain it is appar- 
ent that the confederates, and not the Union troops, fired the building, 
and that they, and not we, are the vandals, if the burning was an act 
of vandalism. 

Mark the statement : 

From May, 1862, except for a few hours on the 9th day of September, 1862, it was 
occupied by Union troops for storing military supplies and other purposes of con- 
venience. In a skirmish on the 9th day of September, 1862, it was fired, &c. 

The question is pertinent, who occupied the college buildings for 
the few hours on the 9th of September, 1862, when the buildings were 
vacated by the Union troops ? Kebel cavalry in flagrant war. The 
report shows there was no fire before they took possession, but one 
broke out soon after they left. To one familiar with the operations 
of such raidiDg parties this tells the story as well as a cloud of wit- 
nesses. But the committee find that after the building was retaken 
straggling soldiers, inflamed by liquor and smarting under defeat, 
fired it. That is to say, the committee find, as one of the grounds to 
sustain this bill, that rebel raiders were too generous to destroy Yankee 
stores and so the Yanks from sheer spite burned their own. I sub- 
mit to my friend from Mississippi, [Mr. Chalmers,] who won distinc- 
tion in the cavalry service, whether such magnanimity on the part of 
cavalry was ever known until discovered in a congressional commit- 
tee-room. 

But, sir, I only allude to this cavalry phenomenon as an incident 
of what is sought to be made history to give coloring to the prayer 
for relief. In my opposition to this measure I stand on no nice dis- 
tinction as to whether one side or the other fired the building, but I 
take the broad ground that its destruction was one of the ravages of 
war, for which there is not the least liability for reimbursement. Such 
is the universal law of nations. It was settled by an American Con- 
gress in 1797, when Washington, Jefferson, and Monroe and many of 
the long list of the illustrious dead whose spirits have been invoked 
and memories revived and passed in panoramic view before this House 
in the early stages of this discussion were the directing spirits of 
this Government — 

That the loss of houses, and other sufferings by the general ravages of war, have 
never been compensated by this or any other government. — American State Papers ; 
Claims, page 199. 

Come, then, shades of the mighty dead, and open the eyes of these 
thy followers, and so direct their judgments that they professing the 
most unbounded admiration and reverence for your wisdom shall not 
for paltry alms violate your precepts. 

But, sir, viewed in another light, the College of William and Mary 
forfeited any right which she may have had as an educational insti- 
tution sacred from the touch of war by becoming herself an engine 
of war, an active participant in rebellion. She not only sent her 
pupils to the red field of battle with words of encouragement and 
Messing, but she banished the muses from her groves, threw wide open 
her gates, and made hervenerable halls barracks for soldiery to destroy 
the Government from which now in all humility she asks recompense. 



I do not state this too stroDgly ; the report shows that before the foot- 
steps of a northern soldier darkened her halls, they had been con- 
verted into barracks and a hospital, in aid of the rebellion. The learned 
faculty cannot plead ignorance of consequences in case of failure ; 
but they never counted failure among the possibilities. I shall not 
go into details of the horrors of that war, and of its cost in blood and 
treasure. I deprecate the reopening of that subject on this floor as 
much as any man ; but I say to the Representatives of the South, in 
all kindness, the discussion of it will last, and properly so, while you 
force it into notice by the presentation of claims resulting from it. 

It is with you to withdraw the subject from discussion or to keep 
it constantly before us by introducing such claims as the present. 
It was a bitter, murderous conflict, and the battle was lost through 
no flinching of yours. The world never witnessed greater devotion 
to a bad cause, and your personal bravery won from your enemy re- 
spect and admiration. When the smoke of the conflict cleared away, 
like brave men, as you are, you bade farewell to the cause you could 
not maintain, and in good faith accepted the situation and came back 
to the house of your fathers to support and defend it against all foes, 
foreign and domestic. 

Wonderful in its proportions as the war was, it has been followed 
by results still more wonderful, and he who sees the yielding of the 
barriers of sectional hate before an enlightened patriotism, and upon 
their ruins a reunion of national brotherhood being rapidly cemented, 
may exclaim of a truth — 

Peace hath her victories 
No less renowned than war ! 

I appeal to my southern friends on this side of the House, will you 
deliberately rake the ashes off the slumbering embers, and fan them 
into a blaze again ? I believe in my heart you will not. But I am 
bound to tell you, and I do it in kindness, for though in war I was 
your open enemy, in peace I am your earnest friend, and as such I 
say to you "The people of the North will never submit to be taxed 
to reimburse your people, or your States out of the National Treasury 
for any losses that they sustained directly or indirectly from the re- 
bellion." It was your rebellion, you have harvested its fruits, and 
must patiently bear its results, bitter though they be. 

There may be men in the North— their voice has been heard on this 
floor speaking words of encouragement to you in presenting claims 
like this one for reimbursement; but it is no true expression of 
northern sentiment ; they are the words of a siren that lures to death. 
You heard them and trusted them in 1860 and 1861 ; will you trust 
them again now ? 

Can you blame the North for their determined opposition to such 
reimbursement ? Had you been victors instead of vanquished, would 
you have imposed taxes upon your people, groaning under the weight 
of a debt contracted in overpowering us, additional burdens to com- 
pensate us for our losses ? Southern statesmanship is too wise and 
far-seeing for that. The democratic party of the North desires to ad- 
vance your present interest and future welfare ; but this does not 
mean relieving you from any of your losses, or assuming any of your 
obligations. She recognizes you in your present status as worthy of 
trust and confidence in all that relates to the present and future, and 
the States you represent as free, equal, sovereign States ; and upon 
all questions disconnected with the war, she stands your true friend, 
believing and teaching that the prosperity of the common country is 
best advanced by the culture and promotion of the rights and inter- 



6 

ests of each and all of its constituent parts. Her policy is broad 
and catholic, and when it shall again prevail the burdens of Gov- 
ernment will be lightened, class legislation will cease, the rights of 
the poor will be respected as well as the wishes of the richer, and an 
era of prosperity will dawn upon the nation. 

The republican party was born of sectionalism ; it grew to its great 
strength, fattening upon the fruits of the folly and madness of south- 
ern men, and now, when the people have sickened with its corruptions 
and violations of the written law, will you for the temporary grati- 
fication resulting from an insignificant appropriation, or a thousand 
of them, awaken a distrust in the northern mind of your purposes 
and make prophetic the declarations of gentlemen upon the other 
side that you are here in the interest of southern claims and that 
the fruits of a democratic majority in the Congress will be the con- 
summation of your purpose! God forbid! You have felt the iron 
heel of central power upon your necks ; you have seen your States 
robbed in the name of law by the myrmidons of a republican oligarchy ; 
you have enjoyed the elective franchise under the dictation of a cor- 
poral and his squad, and have been deprived of the fruits of the 
ballot-box by unblushing fraud and crime that in barbarian China 
would have brought a judgment of "hari-kari" upon its perpetra- 
tors; but in enlightened, free America, instead of punishment it 
hath brought official reward to all connected with it, because they 
did the bidding of the corrupt party whose lease of power was ex- 
tended by it. 

In the light of the past, my southern friends, are you now willing to 
furnish again a battle-cry to your old enemy that shall place it again 
in power and enable it in its caprice to re-enact the scenes you have 
passed since the close of the war and your return to citizenship. 

Southern claims is the last card left to the republican party to play. 
Upon it rests the last hope of the organization, and it is for you in a 
great measure to determine whether it shall prove the ruling trump. 

It would be an act of injustice to my own belief and an act of 
greater injustice to you did I here hesitate to say that these claims, 
about which so much has been and will be said are not presented of 
your own volition nor in the hope or belief that they will or ought to 
be paid. Your sense of right, I feel safe in saying, is averse to the 
payment of the cloud of claims that find admittance here because of 
the great right of every citizen to present for consideration his petition 
or claim, whether it be just or unjust, so only that it be done in language 
that is respectful. 

But men are not always permitted to act upon individual convic- 
tion. A member of this House is a representative ; he acts for others 
more than himself ; he is the agent through whom each individual 
constituent has a right to be heard. And when an impoverished con- 
stituency or constituent demands consideration he would be more 
than mortal if he could refuse to introduce his claim for relief to the 
consideration of this House. 

"We men of the North know and feel the difficulties under which 
you labor, and the delicate position in which you are placed, with 
Scylla upon the one side and Charybdis on the other. And for this 
reason I appeal to the Representatives of the northern democracy 
to stand by the pledged faith of their party and by an unbroken vote 
on this question save the country, save their southern friends, save 
their party from the baleful effects that will certainly follow this 
precedent. 

Let it be known that under no guise, under no pretext will such 
claims be paid, and the work is done, and the pressure of a constitu- 



ency in favor of such bills will cease, and the galleries of this House 
wiii be cleared of the hungry, anxious, eager crowd of claimants, that 
sit day after day watching and waiting for the hour to come when 
their claims shall be reached and passed. 

We upon this side of the House are in no wise responsible for this 
condition of affairs. The republican party opened the door, in an 
effort to toll the southern voters into their camp. 

The war had no sooner closeC than "presto," hosts of loyal people 
were discovered, where nothing but black-handed treason had been 
seen before. \ 

What produced the change ? , A willingness to vote the republican 
ticket, combined with the three great cardinal virtues of that party, 
addition, division, and silence, was an accredited test of loyalty. And 
to provide a reward for these loyal converts to radicalism a court 
was organized to adjust their claims, and a republican Congress com- 
menced paying and continued to pay southern claims while it re- 
mained in power, until the sums paid its retainers footed up many 
millions. And when its power passed away their loyal wards were 
bequeathed to us as a legacy, when the scenes shifted again. Carpet- 
bagging had lost its prestige, and southern claimants lapsed into their 
original sinful state, and the cry against rebel claims to be paid by 
their northern democratic confederates became the burden of the song 
of every loyal republican campaigner in the North. And yet the fact 
stares them in the face that this bill was originally introduced by a 
republican and reported favorably by a republican committee, and is 
now supported most strenuously by a republican. 

Such cant and hypocrisy is best described by designating it as the 
climax of modern republicanism. 

I submit to you, men of the South, whether the men who availed 
themselves and are still seeking to avail themselves of the laws of a 
republican Congress providing Jlfor the payment to loyal southern 
men (so called) were in fact loyal to this Government during the war. 
I believe that you who know them best will bear me out in the asser- 
tion that their pretended loyalty was and is a sham and a fraud, and 
that the amount of losses claimed to have been sustained by them in 
most instances is fully equal if not a greater fraud than the pretense 
of loyalty that accompanies them. 

There were no loyal men who remained in the South during the 
war. It was not in the nature of things. Their sympathies may 
have been with us in the outset, but it is not in flesh and blood to 
sympathize with men who are killing our brothers, kinsfolk, and 
friends, sacking our villages and towns, and laying waste our country, 
no matter in what cause it is done. He who professes he did so adds 
the sin of perjury to that of disloyalty, or proves himself to be devoid 
of the ordinary instinct of human nature and unworthy of the con- 
sideration or respect of anybody. 

Whenever there was a show of loyalty it came from a class of men 
who sang "Kally round the flag" and the rollicking notes of li Dixie" 
with equal unction, false to either side in turn and thoroughly despised 
by both. I never believed in them when they were the proteges of 
the republican party, and think still less of them now. 

But to recur more directly to the measure under consideration, I 
am bound in all fairness to admit that the friends of it disclaim it as 
a southern war claim but support it as a great educational measure. 
Their disclaimer does not change the character of the bill. 

You may break, you may shatter the vase, if you will, 
But the scent of the roses will cling round it still. 



8 



■III 

002 656 606 I 



And so will this bill present all the distinctive features of a south- 
ern war claim, call it what other name you may. Such special plead- 
ing does great credit to the ingenuity of 1 he pleader, but it will not 
and ought not deceive the people. 

Is it really expected that the northern people will believe the lamp 
of science is to go out and the world ha left in Cimmerian darkness 
if the college of William and Mary is pot built up at the expense of 
the nation f There are eight other colleges in Virginia alone, namely : 
Washington and Lee University, Richmond College, Hampden and 
Sidney College, Randolph Macon College, Roanoke College, Univer- 
sity of Virginia, and Emory and Henry College. Are none of these 
of sufficiently high tone to meet the requirements of Virginia's rising 
statesmen that we must donate $65,000 to repair the loss sustained 
by a rebel corporation during the war ? 

Had the College of William and Mary clung as closely to the Gov- 
ernment in the hour of her pride and glory as she does now in pur- 
suit of alms, her sons would not have been cheered on to battle against 
the Union and her halls converted from the home of science and letters 
to barracks for rebel soldiery. If we give alms to her, caught in 
flagrant war, how can we refuse all other institutions of learning in 
the South, and there are many of them, which were destroyed or 
injured by troops in the progress of war? 

If a precedent be established for institutions of learning, are we 
so blind that we cannot see that places of religious worship have 
equal, if not greater, claim, and are already pressing them supported 
by better reasons than are urged for this bill ? Orphan asylums, 
lodges of benevolent societies, court-houses, State-houses, public 
libraries, and what then shall prevent the payment of individual 
losses ? It is true there are several steps, but they are in order, and 
one is a logical deduction from the other, and is as certain to follow 
as morning follows night and noon follows morning. 

If rebel corporations have a right to repayment can there be any 
appreciable difference in principle between paying the corporation 
and the corporators in severalty ? 

Facilis Averni descensus. There can be no stop when you once com- 
mence ; you may disclaim the precedent, but, like " Poor Rip of the 
Catskills," you will yield at each new temptation, soothing conscience 
each time by declaring " We won't count this one ! " 

The battle must be fought at the gate sooner than at the porch, at 
the threshold rather than at the altar. The hungry wolf cannot be 
driven from the door by meat thrown to him when he comes. No 
more will greedy claimants cease their importunate solicitation if 
their petition be ever heeded, be it never so slightly. 

Mr. Speaker, I love and revere ancient institutions of learning as 
much as any man, but I state my candid convictions that sooner than 
pass this bill it will be far better for the country— better for Virginia 
herself — to keep the old college in ruins, a monument of Virginia's 
folly and madness, putting the simple inscription upon her broken 
arches — 

Quem Dens vult perdere prius deraentat : 
Circumspice ! 







